The Quickest Way
by Wynn
Summary: The last place that Steve expects to find Bucky Barnes, former Hydra assassin and now current assassin of Hydra members, is standing in the cereal aisle of his neighborhood grocery store. But he does. A pas de deux eighty years in the making set in a grocery.


AN: Based off a prompt from Tumblr: bookworm213: Maybe a oneshot about Bucky trying to discover who he is in DC after cap 2 and Steve finding him? I've been a sucker for these kinds of fics lately! ;)

AN2: Title inspired by the phrase: "The quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

The Quickest Way

By: Wynn

The last place that Steve expects to find Bucky Barnes, former Hydra assassin and now current assassin of Hydra members, is standing in the cereal aisle of his neighborhood grocery store. But he does. Steve rounds the end cap, passing from the rice and pastas to the cereals and juices and stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the lone man standing halfway down the aisle. Bucky wears jeans and boots with a black hoodie and a white tee, and he is neither as feral nor as worn as Steve anticipated him to be when he found him, his hair still long but the scruff now gone.

Bucky doesn't run from Steve, but he doesn't acknowledge his presence either. He just stares at the cereal, a shopping basket by his feet. After a moment, he says, perfectly normal, "There are so many."

Steve blinks and wonders if he's dreaming. He doesn't think he is. If this were a dream, there would be some sort of twist, like an elephant wandering behind Bucky or the Potomac yawning below them. But there isn't. There's just the grocery store and the strange pop music they pipe over the speakers and Bucky and Steve. And Steve watched _Inception_ with Sam. He can recall exactly how he got to the grocery this afternoon, so it's not a dream.

So he has to do something.

Something other than gawk.

"Uh, yeah," he says, turning to look at the cereal too.

They stare at the boxes of cereal, nearly overwhelming in their variety of tastes, textures, and colors. Steve remembers the first time he shopped on his own after waking from the ice. He spent forty-five minutes pulling down different boxes and reading the labels before buying seven and eating a bowl from each upon arriving at his apartment. He hated half of them, too sugary and insubstantial. He ate them anyway, not wanting to throw them out. Eventually he settled on Honey Nut Cheerios, a new twist on the CheeriOats that debuted during the war.

He moves down the aisle toward Bucky and the Cheerios. Bucky doesn't move, but Steve sees his eyes dart to him and his stance grows wary. He recognized Steve, then, at least. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he was just cautious around all civilians. Uncertain, Steve stops where he is and points instead.

"Try the Cheerios. The Honey Nut. A little sweeter than the original."

Bucky glances at the Cheerios. He studies the box a moment before stepping forward and grabbing one. Tossing it carelessly into his basket, he says, "Thanks," then saunters away, down toward the back of the store, as though this were normal, as though they ran into each other every day at the grocery.

It takes every ounce of self-control that Steve possesses not to go tearing after Bucky. Three months of fruitless searching through a variety of burnt and broken Hydra bases and hideouts in Europe and America before he'd finally looked at Sam and given in to Sam's suggestion of returning to D.C. to brainstorm and reconnoiter. He'd arrived at his apartment, nowhere else to go, not wanting to intrude upon Sam any longer, to find it scrubbed of any sign of Fury and his not-so-permanent demise. He had sat down on the couch, looked at the television, at his books, at his shield propped against the coffee table, at the clock on the wall to find that only five minutes had passed, and then he had stood to come here. Food at least he could find.

Three months of searching.

Five minutes of sitting.

And there Bucky is.

Grocery shopping.

Steve looks again at the end of the aisle where Bucky disappeared then turns and glances the other way before peeking down at his basket and then up, once more, at the boxes of cereal. He blinks once before grabbing a box of Honey Nut Cheerios too. Milk, already, sits in his basket along with some apples and eggs. He'd meant to get meat and vegetables, bread and coffee too, enough for a few days, enough for him to figure out whether he wanted to stay where he was or find a new place to live, but instead he turns and heads for the checkout. Steve peers around as he stands in line, but he doesn't see Bucky. He doesn't see him outside either. The pull to go back in and search hits him hard as he shoves the groceries into the saddlebags of his motorcycle, but if Bucky knew who he was, if he had wanted to talk more, he would have stayed.

In his apartment, Steve sits again upon his couch, a bowl of Cheerios in one hand and the idea that, perhaps, he really was dreaming still niggling at his mind.

* * *

He hadn't been dreaming.

Two days later, when the cereal and eggs run out, he heads back to the grocery. This time Bucky stands by the bread, dressed nearly the same as before, but with a grey tee on this time instead of white.

"You know," Bucky begins, and the Brooklyn in his voice is so strong that Steve nearly weeps, "I remember lots of kinds of bread. Stale, moldy, white, wheat. But this. There's whole wheat and honey wheat and white-wheat and potato bread and rye bread and healthy multi-grain and oatmeal and whole grain and sourdough and raisin bread." He stops then and shakes his head. "Raisins in the bread."

Steve snaps his mouth shut and wills himself to move. "I haven't tried that yet."

Bucky peers at him from the corners of his eyes. "Were you gonna?"

"Well… no."

Bucky turns back to the bread, nodding his approval. As in the cereal aisle, they stand in silence, Bucky staring at the food and Steve staring at Bucky. There's no one else in this section of the store, few people shopping at seven in the morning, and, against his will, the thought wiggles into his brain that he's still in his apartment, that he's still in bed, and that he's still dreaming. But why this dream, the two of them in a grocery store? If this were a dream, Steve figured he'd be smoother, actually capable of conversation. He'd say the right thing and bring Bucky home. But instead, he stands and stares in utter silence, and, for Steve, such an uncomfortable display of interpersonal ineptitude could only indicate cold, hard reality.

But, still, he asks.

"Are you…?"

Bucky pauses, his right hand outstretched to grab a loaf of basic wheat bread. "Am I what?"

"Real," Steve blurts out, feeling a flush spread across the back of his neck as soon as he says it.

Bucky blinks. And then blinks again. And then a wry grin spreads across his face, and Steve is blown back seventy years to other times that he'd said something stupid and Bucky would get that look on his face, fondness and exasperation mingling in the expression. The warmth across the back of Steve's neck sinks down into his chest, and he worries for a moment that he really is going to cry in the middle of the bread aisle in his neighborhood grocery store.

"You know," Bucky says, jerking him back to the present, "I always wondered what I must have looked like strapped to that fucker's table, staring up at you like you were some goddamned miracle that my brain dug up to torture me some more. Now I know."

He plucks the bread from the shelf and plops it in his basket. Then he turns, but he turns _toward _Steve this time and walks _toward _him, _looking _at him, and all Steve can do is gape, the flush spreading across his neck again. Bucky stops beside him, on his right, forcing Steve to turn his head to see him. When he does, all he can see is blue.

"Of course I'm real," he says, his voice a low growl that makes Steve shiver. He is careful not to touch Steve, but Steve smells whatever soap Bucky had used in the shower that morning, he hears the rasp of breath that Bucky draws in to say something else, quieter this time as he moves past Steve.

"You made me be."

* * *

Steve doesn't tell Sam. He doesn't tell Natasha. He's not sure what he would say to them about this. The Winter Soldier is haunting him in a grocery store? It would sound crazy. It _is _crazy. But more than that, he's afraid they would believe him and that they would warn him away, or insist they come with him the next time and watch his six, but Steve doesn't want any of that, afraid that any change in this strange pas de deux that's developing between him and Bucky would end at the sight of others.

Instead, he continues on, hoping, eventually, to understand.

He doesn't understand. Or he does, in part, Bucky perplexed by modern life, fulfilling every cranky old man cliché that Stark perpetually tries to pin on Steve. But the here and the now of it, the end goal, continues to elude Steve.

For instance:

Three days after the bread talk, by the meat:

"Look at this, Steve. Look at the size of this mutant chicken. Jesus, one of these could have fed an entire family for two fucking weeks. Now people eat it all in one night."

And then two days later, in the dairy section:

"Have you seen how much a goddamned gallon of milk costs nowadays? And what the hell is soymilk? Seriously, Steve. It's milk. From _beans_."

Five days after that, beside the beer:

"I miss getting drunk."

With each encounter, Steve watches. No. He stares. If his ma were alive, she'd give him a stern lecture about how staring was rude, but she's not and Bucky _is_ so Steve stares. The feeling is not unfamiliar. He'd always stared at Bucky, both before and during the war, in a variety of moods and for a variety of reasons. Only a few, though, were to understand, to puzzle out the contours of thought behind Bucky's normally expressive face.

He starts with clothing, which, as the saying goes, making the man. Each time Steve sees him, Bucky wears the same boots and worn jeans, but sometimes he replaces the hoodie with a lightweight long-sleeved shirt. Those days, he keeps his left hand hidden in his pocket. The level of scruff on his face varies, never reaching more than a few days growth. His hair remains tousled and long, no matter the time of day, save for their encounter by the beer when Bucky has it pulled back in a messy knot. That fascinates Steve even more than the sight of Bucky in modern clothes, and he gawks so much that Bucky finally turns to him in the middle of frozen foods and gives him a taste of his own medicine.

At first, Steve endures the staring amiably, admirably even, used to it due to his stint as Captain America. But as the seconds pass and the stare persists, he finds himself struggling to stand still, to stay cool, to hold the stare in return. Because Bucky takes his time, he's lazy in his perusal, his eyes dark beneath the shadow of his brow. Steve remembers dressing that morning, digging through his ever-growing pile for a shirt that wasn't too wrinkled, his usual domestic duties thrown into disarray by Bucky's surprise arrival. He starts to hunch but then feels his tee pull tight across his shoulders and stops. At the movement, he sees Bucky still, and Steve does too, and though ten feet separate them, it feels like ten inches to Steve, his breath gone and his body hot despite the proximity to the frozen food. For a second, Bucky lowers his eyes, but it's not due to timidity or shame for, after that second, his lips curve into the grin that used to make all the girls in Brooklyn flutter and sigh, and then he saunters forward, toward Steve.

Bucky stops beside him as he did during their encounter by the bread, again on his right, their shoulders aligned. To see him, Steve would have to turn his head, and he _does _but he doesn't, the lid pried off something that he thought long sealed tight.

"So," Bucky says, the Brooklyn back and dragging out the word until Steve thinks it's wound its way around his gut twice. "Tomorrow?"

Steve nods, a quick jerk of his head, then clears his throat and tries not to blush. "Tomorrow."

* * *

Though they hadn't specified a time, when Steve arrives the next day, Bucky is there. This time, though, he doesn't approach. Instead, he follows Bucky around the store, far enough away to prevent conversation, to prevent more _feelings _like he felt yesterday, not because he doesn't want to feel them, but because he can't deal with something else that he doesn't understand, especially not about Bucky. He shuffles along in time with Bucky, his basket clutched in one hand, not too far away to make it look like he's hiding, Steve too big and Bucky too trained for that to successfully occur. He watches as Bucky picks up random objects and studies them, his brows drawn together. He says yes to marmalade but no to jelly, yes to bratwursts but no to hot dogs, yes to chocolate chip cookies but no to Oreos. At the checkout, Steve watches Bucky unearth a wallet from his hoodie and hand the cashier a few folded bills, shooting her an easy grin as she recites her wish for him to have a nice day.

Two days later, he finds Bucky back in the cereal aisle, but inspecting the oatmeal this time. As soon as Bucky catches sight of him, he speaks, the wry grin back on his face.

"You're not gonna follow me around this time, are you? Because that was weird."

The thought of Steve following Bucky around a grocery being weirder than Bucky randomly showing up here in D.C., in his neighborhood, again and again, with no explanation, after shooting him three times on a Helicarrier and then hauling his dying ass from the Potomac, is so absurd that it almost pulls Steve from his somnambulistic stupor.

Almost.

Instead, he says to Bucky, "How are you paying for all this?"

The question makes Bucky sigh. He shoves the oatmeal back onto the shelf and faces him, and for this first time since these grocery shenanigans began, Steve sees a bit of the Winter Soldier in the depths of Bucky's eyes.

"They had bank accounts, Steve."

The statement chills him. Bucky must see it for his face twists into something hard, something similar to how Bucky had been after Zola, in the times when he thought Steve wasn't looking. But he had been. Before he can speak, though, before he can respond in some way to the knowledge that Bucky had been stealing the money from those in Hydra that he killed, Bucky turns and walks away, his gait steady but his shoulders stiff, and Steve might not understand it all, but he understands this, a clear sign for him to stay away.

* * *

But he can't. He returns to the grocery store the next day and the next, but he doesn't see Bucky either time. Seven more times occur, each with increasing suspicion from the employees inside as the visits lack the requisite purchases to justify their occurrence.

After the eighth, Steve stands outside the store, at a loss, wishing one of the times that he _had_ followed Bucky, that he had any clue where he went afterwards, a direction at least. He scuffs his shoe against the curb, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his pants, the knowledge that he fucked up this opportunity, one he may never get again, heavy in his mind. He could call in Sam or Natasha now, or he could fumble through tech searches himself (he's not _completely _uselesswhen it comes to computers like Stark, and Natasha he suspects, believe that he is; they just don't speak to him the same way that other things do, like battle tactics or Scrabble). Drawing in a breath, he squints up into the afternoon sun and that's when he has an idea.

To find Bucky, he would become Bucky.

Steve strolls from the store, scanning the surrounding buildings, finding the one most likely to offer him a clear vantage point on the store without drawing undue suspicion from others. He needed to check the exit paths from the building, where best he should park his motorcycle in case he needed to follow Bucky quickly. He'd need binoculars and a map too, maybe a listing of recent real estate offerings to figure out where Bucky might be staying. Because he wouldn't be holed up in an abandoned building if he were buying food that needed cooking every few days. He had blended seamlessly into the environment, had integrated into society. He was living somewhere, or he had been living somewhere, and Steve would find it.

* * *

Except Bucky finds him first.

Steve returns to his apartment, his head swimming with the details of his plan, to find his door unlocked and sounds of movement in the kitchen. He creeps inside, his heart rate kicking up at the memory of the last time that someone had broken into his apartment. His entire world had crashed down then, Fury revealing the corruption within S.H.I.E.L.D. and then Bucky felling Fury. Steve eyes his shield at the end of the hall, propped against the couch, but before he can think about grabbing it, Bucky speaks from the kitchen.

"Instant mashed potatoes, Steve? What the hell kind of Irishman are you?"

Anger burns through Steve at the snippy quip. He storms into the kitchen and rips the box from Bucky's hand, slamming it down onto the counter as he kicks shut the pantry door. Bucky jumps back, not quite into fighting stance, but tense enough to react should Steve start a fight.

"Where the _hell _have you been?" he asks instead, his hands fisted by his sides. "I've been at that grocery almost every day for the past two _weeks_."

"Yeah. I know."

Rather than diminish his anger, the admission fuels it. "Then why didn't you say something?"

"Gee, I don't know. How about the last time I said something to you, you turned about as grey as my arm."

Steve frowns at that, searching back through the days to when they last saw each other. Another second passes and then the comment clarifies. "The money."

Bucky nods.

Now his anger lessens. Steve relaxes his fists, pulls in a cooling breath. Bucky watches him, still wary, waiting for a response. Steve licks his lips and tries to choose his words carefully, to not fuck up this fourth opportunity that they've been given. "Yes, I was shocked. I usually am in this line of work. But it wasn't a judgment against you."

Bucky cocks a defiant brow. "No? I hate to break it to you, pal, but I am this line of work."

Steve shakes his head at that.

And the defiance flickers within Bucky.

And hope flares again within Steve.

"If you're just the Winter Soldier," he says, taking a step closer to Bucky, "then I'm just Captain America. And I'm not. And you're not either. We're more than that."

He stops two feet away from Bucky, close enough for him to attack, should he want. He scans Steve, slowly, from head to toe, not the lingering stare of before, but a quiet assessment, perhaps for a threat, perhaps for sincerity. What he sees makes him drop his eyes and let loose a ragged breath. "A lot of broken bits don't make more of something."

The quiet declaration sucker punches Steve in the gut. He clamps down on his gasp and also on the urge to reach out and shake Bucky, to make him see truth. Instead, he leans toward him and says, "You are _not_ broken."

The defiance returns, but softer now, in a slight tilt of his jaw. "No? You sure about that?"

"I'm sure about you."

At that, Bucky closes his eyes. His hands tremble, but he doesn't wear his hoodie today, just a navy henley with his jeans, so he shoves his hands behind his back and says, his voice as stiff as his posture, "You shouldn't be."

"Why not?" Steve asks, easing closer. "You came here, didn't you? The Winter Soldier wouldn't have." He pauses then and his lips quirk into a small smile. "Especially not to judge my mashed potatoes."

There's a long pause where Bucky swallows hard. Then he opens his eyes. The sight of Steve smiling arrests him, but only for a moment. His gaze slides to the counter and a faint version of his trademarked smirk returns. "Those aren't potatoes," he says. "They're an abomination."

Steve nods, his smile widening. "True."

They stare at each other, the humor of the moment fading, unable to sustain the weight of the prior conversation, but their previous anger remains at bay, leaving Steve with his hope. Keeping his gaze fixed on Bucky, he says, "This life might shock me sometimes, but you don't. I know what you've done. What do you think I've been doing since I got out of the hospital?"

Bucky snorts. "Being an idiot. You don't get anything by going back."

Steve doesn't call him on the hypocrisy, Bucky the one leading the barn burning against the remnants of Hydra, Steve and Sam just following in his wake. Instead, he says, "Then why did you come back here?"

Bucky shrugs and looks away. "Why did you?"

Steve bites back a sigh at the evasion. But he considers the question, the final discussion he had in Kiev with Sam. One of them had to answer. "Because I live here," he offers after a moment. Because he did. He does, this apartment as much of a home as any that he's had since leaving Brooklyn for Camp Lehigh. But as soon as he says it, Steve knows the answer's not true. Not entirely. "I guess… I guess I didn't know where else to go. I couldn't find you."

Bucky closes his eyes again.

"And you?" Steve asks, pushing, knowing that he's pushing, but unable to stop. "Why did you?"

Silence stretches between them. Bucky pulls in a deep breath. He lifts his right hand and pushes his hair back from his face, sweeping it back, and the gesture is so familiar that Steve feels his heart clench. Twenty seconds tick by before Bucky finally looks at him and offers his reason. "I knew this is where you'd come. Eventually. So I came."

"Are you going to stay?"

The smirk returns as Bucky glances around the kitchen. "Here? Hell no. I may know who I am, but I'd rather not be constantly reminded of how I shot your boss. But…" He pauses then and drags his gaze back to Steve. When he does, the smirk softens, becomes a genuine smile that Bucky tries to bite back. "I got a place. It's not much. But you can come. If you want. I could cook you something."

"Cook? You?" Steve leans against the counter, loose and light, and quirks a brow. "I don't know about that, Buck. I remember some of your cooking."

Bucky gives him a look. "And I remember yours. Mine's better." Another pause. In it, the smile flickers. "So? Do you—"

"Yes. Yes. Of course. I want to come."

The smile comes then, radiant and absolute. Steve finds himself mirroring it, leaning toward it, closer to Bucky, fourteen again and breathless as he smiles that smile and slings an arm around Steve's shoulders and how, for that moment, despite his ailment and despite their poverty, everything was okay.

How everything is okay.

With a start, Steve pulls back. He tries to compose himself as Bucky reaches into one pocket of his jeans. He pulls out a folded piece of paper before handing it to Steve. Opening it, Steve finds an address not far from his apartment printed in small block letters.

"Seven-thirty good?"

Steve looks at Bucky and tries to say yes, he tries to nod, he tries to do something, again, and not just stand there and gape, but he can't, the reality of this finally hitting him, he and Bucky here and alive and as whole as they can be given what they've endured. His throat clamps down and he struggles to breathe, and the feeling prompting both is so unfamiliar that he laughs, a gasping cough of a laugh that makes Bucky frown.

"Are you…?"

"Sorry," Steve says. "I just— I felt—" He shakes his head as he attempts to articulate the twists of the past minute. "I feel… happy." He feels himself squirm as his brain processes the word that popped out of his mouth. He glances at Bucky then and gives him a sheepish smile. "It's, uh, it's been a while."

Bucky stares at him a long moment, his frown less in confusion and more in contemplation, then the wry grin returns to his face. "Tell me about it."

The smile on his face slips as Steve recalls exactly _why _Bucky wouldn't have been happy, but then the implication sinks in. That he is happy. Now. With him. As the realization dawns, Steve sees Bucky duck his head. He starts to ease past, attentive to the space between them, but Steve feels him anyway in the once over that Bucky gives him as he moves by. At the entrance to the kitchen, Bucky stops and says, his voice low, "So I'll see you at seven?"

Steve frowns at that and turns around. "I thought you said seven-thirty."

"I did."

He feels lightheaded at the admission, his heart pounding in his chest, his body hot and blood beginning to swirl in interesting places. He nods at Bucky, not trusting his voice. Bucky bites down on his bottom lip and regards Steve another moment before ambling off, silent despite his boots.

As the door closes behind him, Steve leans his head against the wall and tries to remember how to breathe.

* * *

The afternoon passes in a time tunnel, simultaneously too fast and too slow for Steve. He stands in his bedroom, fresh from the shower, staring into his closet of newly laundered clothes, again trying to process what he's been trying to process the past few hours. That Bucky liked him. As more than a friend. That Bucky wanted him.

Sexually.

As in, for sex.

Because he did, didn't he? The smile by the frozen food. The final look before he'd left that day.

And he said that he would cook _Steve _something, not cook _them _something.

Like for a date.

Right?

Steve sinks down onto his bed, the idea as fanciful and absurd as everything this past month, since the first time he saw Bucky in the grocery. He runs his hand along the edge of his blanket and wonders, again, if this is a dream. Because this has been his dream, at various times in his life, the thought of kissing Bucky, the thought of Bucky kissing him, of wanting him, despite his body, or maybe even because of it, both when he was too small and, after, when he became too big. But Steve had never thought much about it upon waking. Not because the thought of being with another guy disgusted him. It hadn't. He knew that some guys went with guys and some dames went with dames. He knew some, too, in the last art class he'd been able to take before the war and around the neighborhood. So it wasn't that.

It was _Bucky_.

It was _him_ and it was _Bucky_, and the idea of that becoming a reality, of them becoming a reality, of the most gorgeous person that Steve had ever met, Peggy and Natasha included, one who was kind and mischievous and smart and witty, wanting him, loving him in that way, was completely, entirely, and thoroughly absurd. Even now, as Captain America. Because he may have been Captain America, but Bucky was Bucky. Everybody loved him, guys and dames, and he flirted with them all, even the guys, those that he knew at least would take it the right way, and that included Steve. But that was it, Steve knew. Or he thought that he knew. He thought that he'd been just Steve, but Bucky had called him a miracle, a goddamned miracle come to rescue him from Zola. And to make him real.

So maybe he wasn't just Steve. Or he was, but not _just_. He was Steve. And that was enough.

That was what Bucky wanted.

Right?

Steve shakes his head and laughs. Peggy had said that he didn't know anything about women. It seems he didn't know anything about _anyone_, at least not concerning this. Pushing off the bed, he stands before his closet and stares again at his clothes. What did a man wear to something that may or may not be a date with his previously thought dead best friend, a former war hero turned unwilling assassin? If he went too formal, undoubtedly it would _not _be a date, but if he went too casual, then it would be. He settles on jeans and a pale green button-up, the shirt tucked in but the sleeves folded to the elbows. He eschews a jacket, the mid-July night too warm for more.

Whatever Bucky wore would be the determining factor. He had always dressed sharply for his dates. Steve saw enough of that Bucky within this one to think that this would be the case now.

* * *

And it is, but it isn't.

Bucky opens the door to his apartment, tucked at the end of the hall on the top floor of an old apartment building from the 1930s, wearing the same as before, the navy henley and jeans, and it only occurs to Steve then that he probably doesn't have a lot more to wear, at least not for a date, his life until four months ago an indescribable tragedy.

So it's not his clothes.

It's his hair.

Before, aside from the beer encounter and the knot that had intrigued Steve more than it should, Bucky's hair had always been tousled and wind-blown, finger combed if combed at all. But now it is and it's styled too, similarly enough to how it had been before the war for Steve to know it's intentional. The style doesn't quite work, Bucky's hair too long, the front few strands slipping free to frame the left side of his freshly shaven face, but that makes it work, that brings the flush back to Steve's neck and a dart of heat slithering through his gut.

Ducking his head, he lifts the whiskey bottle he bought on the way over. "We might not be able to get drunk, but that doesn't mean we can't drink, right?"

Steve waits for a reply, for some sort of joke to ease the tension he feels inside of him, but Bucky says nothing. The silence stretches, so long it finally forces Steve to look up. Bucky is nowhere in sight, the doorway empty and quiet all around.

"Bucky?"

No response greets him. His brow creasing, Steve eases into the apartment and shuts the door behind him. The hall before him is short with two entryways leading off from the left into the rest of the apartment. Light spills from both. Moving forward, Steve peeks into the first, finds a small kitchen and, beyond, a tiny eating area. Bucky stands a couple of feet away, his head bent and his hands gripping the edge of a counter. The sight compels him to move. He steps closer to Bucky, placing the bottle on the counter just inside the doorway.

"Are you okay?" he asks, keeping his voice low and his movements slow as he approaches.

Bucky laughs, the same gasping huff of a laugh that Steve gave in his kitchen when the reality of the moment set in upon him. Steve feels his body clench at the sound, even more when Bucky tilts his head and looks at him and Steve sees the sheen of tears in his eyes.

"Bucky?"

"I'm fine. I just—" Bucky eases around until he's leaning against the counter now. He lifts his right hand and rubs it across his face, laughing again. "God, we're a fucking pair, aren't we? If it's not you gawking at me in the grocery, it's me having a goddamn breakdown in my kitchen."

Some of the tension dissipates within Steve. He leans too, beside Bucky, their shoulders brushing against each other as he eases back. "Better than us shooting each other, I suppose."

Lowering his arm, Bucky laughs again, a short bark that makes Steve smile. On the stove before them rests a small baking sheet with two potatoes, baked, of course, easier than mashed. A dish covered in foil sits nearby, one of those enormous mutant chickens by the shape. The sight of the food sends a rush of emotion through Steve. He feels Bucky start to pull away, to finish the rest of the dinner, no doubt. But he can't.

Steve can't let him go again.

Clearing his throat, he says, "I, uh, I have a suggestion. For something else. Something we can do."

There's a pause in which Steve winces at his verbal ineptitude. Then Bucky says, slowly, "Do you now?"

The knowing timbre of Bucky's voice sends Steve's heart into overdrive. "Yes."

"And what is that?"

He can't say it, words failing him as always in these sorts of moments. But he won't let this opportunity slip by again. Pushing off the counter, Steve steps and turns until he faces Bucky. About six inches separate them. He doesn't immediately close the distance though. He peers at Bucky instead, gauging his reaction. No discomfort faces him, just surprise in the slant of Bucky's brows, nerves in the grip of his hands on the counter, and expectancy in the curve of his mouth. Breathing in, Steve reduces the distance from six to one. This close, he can again smell the soap Bucky used in the shower, the heady scent of his aftershave. He lifts his left hand, but hesitates, unsure where to place it. Bucky's smile unfurls a little more, not in mockery at his gracelessness. In amusement. This provides Steve the impetus he needs. He places his hand on Bucky's waist, nearly surging forward as Bucky's eyes go dark at the contact. But he doesn't, Natasha and her gentle ridicule of his kissing in the back of his mind.

"Is this… is this okay?" he asks.

Bucky shifts. Steve feels his right hand skim his hip, catch in one of the belt loops of his jeans, and tug him forward, eliminating the final inch as he tilts his face up toward Steve.

"I'm here, aren't I?" he murmurs the moment before their lips touch.

He is. And so is Steve.

The kiss reminds Steve of none of the others he's experienced, mostly because he can't think of them, his world reduced to the hard muscle beneath his left hand, the soft press of Bucky's lips against his. He reaches up with his right hand and glides his palm against Bucky's neck. The feel of the pulse pounding captivates him. It grounds him. He leans into Bucky, opening his mouth as Bucky does, unable to tamp down on the moan that wells within him when Bucky touches his tongue to Steve's. Bucky's hand tightens on his hip; he hears a soft whir and a creak of wood, the clutch of his left on the counter. Later, he'll ask Bucky to touch him with it and to let him touch it. For now he kisses, trying to convey in the movement of his mouth all that he can't say out loud, but all that he can now believe, eighty years of dreams becoming reality.

When the kitchen echoes with the harsh pant of their breath, when his hands shake and his legs tremble and he feels Bucky shudder against his chest, Steve pulls away. His hands itch for a drawing pad at the sight of Bucky, at the play of colors on his face, the flush of his cheeks and lips, the dark lines of his brows, the flash of white teeth as he smiles, and the bold blue of his eyes that look at Steve both dazed and sly. Steve considers moving back in, but he wants to see the rest of Bucky's apartment and try the food that he cooked and drink the whiskey he paid too much for and talk about baseball and motorcycles and the best way to grip a knife in a fight, to learn about Bucky and to let him learn about Steve too, so he eases back but lets his hand linger, still curved around Bucky's waist.

"So," he says, a broad grin on his face as Bucky meets his eyes, "What's for dinner?"


End file.
